Love Wins
by FrankandJoe3
Summary: Same-sex marriage is legalized in the United States and Wally has a very important question to ask his boyfriend. Birdflash


**Same-sex marriage is now legal in the United States. We win, my ducklings. No, more than that: _love_ wins. I've never been more happy to be alive.**

* * *

Wally was an hour and forty pins into his 'proposal ideas' secret board on Pinterest, discretely named 'diet tips' on the off chance anyone got onto his phone, when he heard the keys sound in the door of the apartment he and Dick had shared for the past eight months, four months shorter than how long they'd been together. He lowered his phone to his chest and watched the door in case it was Artemis, or Kaldur, or even Bruce, or anyone on the growing list of people who wanted to see his and Dick's relationship progress nearly as much as he did.

When the door opened, he recognized his boyfriend pulling the key out of the lock, still in uniform, and he closed out of the app before getting up to greet him.

"Morning, beautiful," he swooped in, using his most sultry voice.

He came up behind the nineteen year old and started to thread his arms around his chest when, with a warm laugh, Dick squirmed out of his hold.

"Not now, Walls. I'm sweaty," he protested.

He grinned all the same and Wally settled for threading their fingers together, worming the keys out of the ebony's grip and throwing them onto the couch behind him.

"That's usually encouragement for me to keep going," Wally teased, and Dick's nose crinkled in a laugh.

"Perv," Dick shook his head, and finally gave in enough to kiss the needy redhead's cheek. "I've gotta hop in the shower really quick."

Normally, Wally would've taken that as an invitation, but his shoulder dropped this time. He squeezed Dick's fingers a little tighter.

"We're going to be late," he very nearly whined, referring to the nice lunch they had been planning for the past week.

For the past _three_ weeks actually. Work always came up though, be it spandex or otherwise, further postponing their plans. They had desperately been needing a date night that wasn't just Netflix and sex. Not that they didn't like those date nights- quite the contrary, but it was a nice change of pace to go out and do something that didn't leave them with hickeys and bruises to try and cover up before going to work that next morning.

"I didn't forget," Dick assured him, freeing his fingers. "Our reservation's not for another hour. I'll be quick."

Wally pouted in passive aggressive protest as his boyfriend started down the hallway, watching him work his way out of his shirt.

"Scout's honor!" Dick called behind him, holding up three joined fingers.

"You weren't a boy scout!" Wally called back with a little huff, sitting on the back of the couch. "What am I supposed to do until you're done?"

Dick was out of his collared shirt now, having dropped it in front of the kitchen entrance, and was now pulling his tank top up out of his slacks. He paused in the door frame for the bathroom, looking back at the redhead.

"Watch TV or something, babe," he suggested, and then he shut the door behind him.

With a dejected sigh, Wally collapsed backwards onto the couch. His head nearly hit the coffee table, and in evading the disaster, he found himself eye-to-eye with the remote, albeit upside down. He lifted it up off of the table and flipped the TV on before ditching the remote and patting the couch beside him until his fingers curled around his phone.

As he continued his scroll through 'proposal ideas for him', he didn't bother straightening, and only tuned in enough to the TV to get that he had the news on.

He was laughing to himself at the ridiculousness of one idea, a picture of a ring in what looked like s'mores, when he picked "same-sex marriage" out of what the anchorwoman was saying. His laugh died off and he lowered his phone, propping himself up on an elbow to look at the TV.

When it came to the news and marriage, in his experience, it was a strict 'straight or bust' situation, and he was already reaching for the remote when he noticed the caption under the woman's face:

 _Same-sex marriage legalized in all 50 states._

Immediately, he forgot every basic function aside from the one that dropped his phone and the other that had him turning the TV up, although both were done with a very shaky hand.

"It's official, folks. Earlier this morning, the Supreme Court made history in a 5-4 decision that legalized same-sex marriage throughout all fifty states," the woman went on.

If Wally had wanted to make a sound, he wouldn't have been able to, seeing that his heart had suddenly jumped up into his throat. His mouth dried quickly, and he was afraid to take another breath in fear of blowing the miracle away. His legs slowly came up from behind the couch and he sat up cautiously, eyes glued to the screen.

"Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority opinion, 'No longer may this liberty be denied. No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were'," the words went along the screen as the woman said them, and Wally mouthed them as his eyes watered, a dumb grin starting on his lips. "We take you live now to Emily Kinney, live at-"

Wally was already out of the room. He was a blur down the hallway, and not noticing the shirt Dick had shed by the kitchen, he slid on it and hit the door frame with a very loud thud, followed by an unflattering groan as he fell back.

"You alright?" Dick's voice called out over the roar of the shower.

"M'good!" the redhead got out as he scrambled to his feet, clutching his head.

He took a quick glance at the door frame and noticed a bit of blood, confirming that it was from the new cut on his head as he pulled his hand away from it, but he wasn't going to let it stop him. He was on a mission now. Resuming his super speed and trying his hardest to not stop outside the bathroom door to enjoy Dick's laugh, he ran into the bedroom he and his boyfriend shared. Dropping to the floor beside their bed, he reached a hand up between the bed posts and fished out the small white box he had stowed away three weeks ago.

All the hours he had put into Pinterest hadn't prepared him for this moment, but to be honest, he didn't think anything could've. Staring at the ring in the box wasn't going to make it any easier, especially when every moment longer blurred his vision even more.

Their love was legal.

It was a simple statement, something that shouldn't have been so satisfying to say, but it was powerful enough to nearly knock a tear out of his eyes, and he knew he had to get a move on if he didn't want to lay on the bedroom floor crying until Dick got out of the shower. With a shaky breath, he took the ring out of the box and took off down the hallway until he was at the bathroom door.

He could hear Dick singing under his breath just faintly behind the water, and it was enough for him to put his forehead to the door with a watery grin. The contact rubbed against his new wound and he jerked up with a hiss, and it served as the final push he needed. He opened the bathroom door and made his way across it, fully dressed, and threw open the shower curtain.

Dick jumped at first, turning to face his boyfriend with wide eyes, but the surprise bled quickly into concern when he noticed the bleeding cut on the redhead's forehead. He went to mention it, but Wally was already grabbing his wet face and kissing him. It was chaste at first, but whatever was going to be said was lost as Dick grabbed his boyfriend's wet clothes and pulled him farther into the shower. He tangled one hand in the back of his shirt and the other up in his hair, taking advantage of Wally's mouth still open on a word he was going to say and kissing him back to silence.

Wally wrapped one arm around the ebony, laughing around the tongue tracing its way along his, and the hand he had the ring in slowly made its way back to find Dick's hand. He traced his way back to the one in his hair. Bringing it down between them, he pulled his arm away from his boyfriend's back and slid the ring tucked in his palm down along his ring finger.

Dick pulled back and looked between them, eyes widening as soon as he saw the ring. His head nearly snapped up as he looked up at the redhead, jaw dropped to some degree.

"Marry me," Wally gasped with a dumb grin and tears in his eyes.

Dick looked like he was going to say something, like he was going to argue, but Wally quickly held his face, his jaw, and his tear-filled eyes held onto Dick's drier ones.

"It's legal," he rushed out. "The Supreme Court just passed it, 5-4. All 50 states. It's legal-"

Dick kissed him silent again, but it lasted only until his face crumpled from what might have been tears. Wally's was crumpled for what might have been the same reason, although the shower was making it a little hard to tell. The younger of the two leaned forward until their foreheads touched and wrapped his arms around his boyfriend's neck, searching his watery green eyes for proof that he hadn't imagined this.

"Marry me," Wally begged again.

He kissed him softly, and then he asked again. And again. And again, each time with a brief kiss as punctuation.

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Dick. I'm in love with you. I'll always be in love with you," there was no mistaking the tears running down Wally's face now, but Dick was crying, too, by now. "I wanted to do it in a better way. God, I wanted to be creative! I wanted to-"

The redhead trembled, getting choked up on the tears that he couldn't quite stop. Dick's hands quickly sought out his face, and his own crumpled with a tiny sob.

"Yes," he barely got out, and then louder, "God, yes. Yes!"

He wrapped his arms around the redhead again and pressed his face into the now wet shoulder, his thumb absently running over the ring with a sob he couldn't swallow. Wally pressed his face into Dick's bare shoulder and they clung to each other under the water, crying, and then they were laughing into each other.

"You're soaked," Dick noted after some time, pulling back and wiping at his cheeks with a wobbly grin.

Wally looked down at his soaked clothes in surprise at first, and then he gave a watery laugh, tangling his fingers with Dick's. He could feel the ring against his fingers and it welled tears in his eyes again.

"I know," he returned the grin, and he set his forehead back against the other's, and they practically glowed.

They did eventually go to lunch. When they arrived, Wally was in a new outfit with a band-aid over the cut on his forehead, and the fiances couldn't take their eyes off of each other.

* * *

 **-F.J. III**


End file.
